The construction and use of the Playback permitted a systematic study of the interactions
between the individual sounds of speech.
In turn, this led to pioneering work in the 1950s by Franklin S. Cooper, Pierre C. Delattre, Alvin M. Liberman,
John M. Borst, Louis J. Gerstman, and many others
on determining the underlying critical acoustic "cues" for speech.
This research had a revolutionary effect on speech science, and was fundamental to
the development of our modern techniques of speech synthesis, the development
of reading machines for the blind, and the study of speech perception
and recognition. The Pattern Playback was last used in an experimental study by Robert Remez,
in 1976. The device now resides in the Museum at the Haskins Laboratories,
in New Haven, Connecticut, where it is often shown to our many visitors.

We have attempted to capture a bit of this history and have provided a brief, virtual tour of
the Pattern Playback.